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Of Paddy fields and Daddy fields...

I've written lots about my hometown, Nagercoil, in this blog... about how every trip home is like being embraced in earth's bountiful bosom. So you can imagine my surprise when for the very first time in my life, I felt bereft and speechless at her decrepit state. The past few weeks were exactly like the earth in Interstellar, a dust bowl, that's the only way to describe Nagercoil now. All her roads and mudukku's have been dug up, vehicles ply over these pathetic roads leaving a trail of dust in the air. There is a fine coating of the characteristic red mud on every visible surface... and amidst all the dancing and swirling red dust, people go about their daily lives, unfazed and undeterred, patiently waiting for their little town to go back to it's former glory of quaint roads and angel rays that flit and float through tree branches, playing shadows with the ground below. I was pretty much covered up like a terrorist there, a duppata covering my entire face except my eyes... my family refused to walk with me sometimes. That was my dust bowl existence, it kinda made coming back to the city less painful...

Despite all this, my time there was pretty exciting... Sajeeve, a cousin, gave me the idea of lighting candles arranged in the roman numeral way of depicting 2015. Nam and another cousin, helped me out with this...

How pretty they look flickering away, welcoming the new year. Those motifs are kolam patterns made using kolam stencils... dad bought these pretty cool stencils in the fish market, it was fun playing around with them.

Visited the farm too with the old gang, and hung out at the water tank munching on chocolates...

Visited thespecial schooltoo with the girls and it was nice seeing all my old friends and children... met Mother Magdalene after ages, she introduced me to A. J. Cronin and I fell completely in love with him.

Hung out in these paddy fields...

And took lots of pictures.

And a video of the swaying crops with the mountains in the background... I can never tire of this sight, they always seem to beckon...

Ate lunch on the riverbanks... it was a potluck, so I made masala coated eggs, and roast potato masala, the others brought mint rice, coconut rice, tomato rice, poppadams and kesari.

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So the last travel post was about Turin, after which we drove all the way to Padua and after roaming around at night, eating ice cream
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San Antonio's shrine, the shrine where the tomb of St. Antony is located.
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He rarely wears it, so I started wearing it...
Picked up this cream and chapstick at the Padua …